Let's Go Retro: Shaping and Scraping the Zeppelin Lindau (Dornier) Rs II (late)

[jrlx]

Excellent work! Extremelly impressive care and attention to detail and great engineering

 

The model already looks beautiful!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[pheonix]

Evening All,

 

Thanks Jamie for the very kind remark. I am not sure that I would describe this as beautiful - shapely perhaps? When I saw the photos of this for the first time I just knew that I had to try to build one because there is something aesthetically pleasing about it, although for some I could understand if they considered it to be incredibly ugly and ungainly.

 

I have been away for a few days and therefore am getting behind, so I have spent longer than normal today trying to catch up, which means that other urgent tasks will have to be addressed tomorrow! Damn. Anyway I have got the engine mounts for the port (left) engine made, and I have made them so that they fit properly. A little thought when I was traveling suggested the following sequence should work - and amazingly it did!

 

I started by fixing the horizontal tabs to the sides of the nacelles: I have no idea what they were for but they are very clearly present in the photographs and drawings. The exhaust covers were made from 60 thou rod which had been cut to length and then filed in half, one end rounded and the rear drilled to leave a hole before the piece was glued into place. Next I measured the lengths of the legs at the front and rear of the nacelle from the plans, and cut some 30 thou rod. One end of each piece of rod was cemented to the indents in the nacelle and the cement allowed to set slightly. When the cement was stiff I placed the ends of the legs into the holes in the hull and adjusted the angles of the legs so that the nacelle was correctly aligned horizontally, vertically and laterally. This was left to dry out overnight - no jig or support was needed as the cement was sufficiently set to hold the nacelle.

 

 

 

 

I could then add the horizontal bracing struts between the legs: this immediately gave strength to what was otherwise a weak structure. This was allowed to set for an hour just to be sure.

 

 

 

With these legs secure I could add the additional legs which make the two towers on which the front and rear of the nacelle are mounted to the hull. The horizontal cross bracing went in next, followed by the slanted pieces, all held in place with liquid cement and all measured to fit using a pair of dividers.

 

 

 

When all of this was dry I could remove the nacelle and legs assembly so that I can now paint them as trying to paint these in place and not mark the hull would be beyond my ability. This means that I will now be able to put this back on to the hull and all of the legs will fit into the holes.

 

 

 

 

 

Next step will be to paint the legs.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

P

 

 

[jrlx]

Impressive work on the supporting structures of the nacelle! Well thought out and brilliantly executed, as can be confirmed by the pictures of the completed sub-assembly.

 

Regarding the beauty of the machine, I really think it is beautiful with all the rigging and delicate-looking tail structure. It can only improve with the wing on

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[Brandy]

That was a very cunning plan, and it worked! One down, one to go.....

 

Ian

[TheBaron]

I just love these updates Phoenix - each one an addictively pitched blend of image and explanation. Seeing these latter stages of the build makes me realise how optimistically futuristic this aircraft looked for the time (if that makes sense?), engineered to resemble nothing so much  to my eye as a species of baroque Ekranoplan! 

 

(Which may reveal more about my eyesight than the aircraft of course...)

 

Nacelle and legs looking very good and blending in splendidly with the extent structural features.

 

Luscious.

[pheonix]

Evening All,

 

On 12/7/2017 at 10:44 AM, TheBaron said:

I just love these updates Phoenix - each one an addictively pitched blend of image and explanation. Seeing these latter stages of the build makes me realise how optimistically futuristic this aircraft looked for the time (if that makes sense?), engineered to resemble nothing so much  to my eye as a species of baroque Ekranoplan! 

 

(Which may reveal more about my eyesight than the aircraft of course...)

 

Nacelle and legs looking very good and blending in splendidly with the extent structural features.

 

Luscious.

Thanks Tony for the very generous comments. I am not sure about the Ekranoplan but the design was a bit futuristic for 1916/17. In fact as I have written before, many of the features of Dornier's flying boats were pioneered in this design: the wide hull, lack of wing floats, engines mounted above the hull, parasol wing, tandem engines, etc. Dornier and his team were being incredibly innovative, especially considering that Bleriot had only flown over the channel 7 years earlier with a motorcycle engine at the front!

 

On 12/5/2017 at 6:36 PM, limeypilot said:

That was a very cunning plan, and it worked! One down, one to go.....

 

Ian

Yes Ian, and I was supposed to iterate and all would be OK. Well that was the plan....... except that it didn't quite work that way. I assembled the starboard (right) nacelle support towers as previously described and put the right and left nacelle sub-assemblies on to the model just to see how it looked. It did not look at all right. Reason? I had somehow mis-measured the height of the horizontal struts on the right nacelle towers with a result that looked awful!

 

At this point I would like to remind fellow modellers that if you wish to know how to make a mistake when modelling, I am the first port of call! I could write a book on the subject! How I mis-measured I do not know, but the solution was to remove all the smaller struts, leaving just the legs in place, and start again. Fortunately the legs held and I was able to replace all of the offending parts relatively quickly....but I was a tad annoyed. Painting followed for both sides, (at which point I corrected the colour for the bits on the sides of the nacelles that I had previously painted the wrong shade of grey!), and then I glued the port (left) nacelle into place on the hull, followed by the centre legs. Rigging followed using 40 SWG rolled copper wire held in place with CA as per the tail boom. This was necessary for two reasons:

 

1. with the cabane struts and wing in place these nacelles would be nearly impossible to get to;

 

2. with one nacelle in place rigging the inner part of the second one was difficult enough.

 

 

 

 

 

The starboard nacelle followed, CA'd into place on the hull and rigged:

 

 

 

 

 

Although I did not take a photo I did try out the cabane struts just to make sure that there is a  gap between them and the nacelles and that the sticking out bits on the nacelles do not foul the struts: they do not. When scratch building these small things can go wrong, (as did the strut assembly described above), and in this case the consequences would have been pretty serious if they had because simply re-positioning the sticking out pieces would have made the whole thing look odd. There was very little room for error there.

 

At last this is beginning to look like the machine in the photographs. There is still a lot more to do before I can think about putting the wing on: rig the boom, add engine radiators and associated pipes and bracing, check the location slots in the wing, make the large V struts, etc. More later.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

P

 

 

[jrlx]

Impressive work, as always! Very well done!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[TheBaron]

13 hours ago, jrlx said:

Impressive work, as always!

Difficult to find any phrase to beat that for this quality of workmanship.

[pheonix]

Evening All,

 

Thanks Jamie and Tony for the generous remarks. Coming from modellers of your abilities I am very flattered indeed. FYO another modeller has described this as "scaffolding with wings" which I thought was rather appropriate. Another has called it my Pokemon!

 

On to the build as time is beginning to run short and I will be away for some of the holiday period and am aware that days can slip by with little being achieved. I have still to work out precisely how the wing is going to be fitted: I am trying to think of a jig which will not be more complicated than the model...............

 

I am also concerned about the strength of the cabane struts, which as shown earlier I have reinforced with brass rod, but still cannot make up my mind whether to reinforce some of the V struts. The problem with the latter would be how to fix them to the attachment points on the hull because if I do  it  would require drilling holes at awkward angles in a very small piece of plastic. The  V struts are also long and inserting rod and keeping the strut even would not be simple. I have a feeling that I am going to just use thick wide strip and hope it works: if it does not.....dammit it will!!!

 

Before the wing can be fitted however I had to put on the radiators above the engines. They were scraped and shaped from plastic card with grilles scribed with a sharp knife. The filler caps were from two thicknesses of rod. The bracing, supports and radiator pipes were also rod.

 

 

 

 

 

I have tested the cabane struts again as part of the planning for placing the top wing: I keep having different ideas about how to do this and none of them seem to be practical. This is what the struts look like minus the wing:

 

 

 

You can see in these photos that there is not a great deal of attachment between the tops of those struts and a large and heavy wing. Araldite will be the bonding of choice because it will give me wriggle time but will be strong. The question is still how to fix the struts and the wing in a single operation.... I need some form of jig but not one which is too complicated: I think that I may have one and hope to be able to report in the next few days. If I do not then you can reasonably assume that it did not work and I may be on the way to giving up on the deadline for this one because there is a real risk of damaging the engine installations and radiators which are a bit precarious up there.

 

More in due course I hope.

 

P

 

[jrlx]

Excellent work on the radiators, as always! I can't stop marvelling at the care and attention to detail you're investing in this totally scratch built model

 

Take your time preparing your next move. I hope you find a good solution to install the wing!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[stevehed]

Go for it P. It's a question of balance. I've every confidence you have the profile of the wing correct so the lion's share of the weight should be in the forward section beyond half way. Provided the location holes are in the right place it should all fit together nicely. Says he from the comfort of the sofa. BTW I always cheat and make the holes larger than necessary for wriggle room and fill them with CA gel.

 

Regards, Steve

[TheBaron]

I've no doubt that with your problem-solving skills you'll have the wing and strut configuration sorted in elegant fashion Phoenix. The sheen of light across the shapes in that last photograph really brings out the true quality and depth of the work that you've done on this aircraft. I love the varying scales and weights of the various structures of which it is composed, so much for then eye to explore...

Tony

[Brandy]

The rads look great.

For the jig, I would attach the struts to the hull, then place either thick plastic card, or balsa blocks either side, and clamp them to the fuselage so that the struts can't sag outwards. 

 

Ian

[pheonix]

On 12/15/2017 at 4:45 PM, stevehed said:

Go for it P. It's a question of balance. I've every confidence you have the profile of the wing correct so the lion's share of the weight should be in the forward section beyond half way. Provided the location holes are in the right place it should all fit together nicely. Says he from the comfort of the sofa. BTW I always cheat and make the holes larger than necessary for wriggle room and fill them with CA gel.

 

Regards, Steve

Thank you Steve: you are right of course, most of the weight of the wing is forward so that it will not tip backwards when mounted. I have made the holes in the wing just the right size because trying to clean up those joints after the wing is in place is going to be a real trial.

 

On 12/16/2017 at 5:08 PM, limeypilot said:

The rads look great.

For the jig, I would attach the struts to the hull, then place either thick plastic card, or balsa blocks either side, and clamp them to the fuselage so that the struts can't sag outwards. 

 

Ian

Thanks for the tip Ian. Actually I have long brass ends which go into holes in the hul and with the exception of one of the rear struts which is a little floppy, they all sit in their correct positions so it is just the strut-to-wing joint which is the problem.

 

On 12/16/2017 at 1:25 PM, TheBaron said:

I've no doubt that with your problem-solving skills you'll have the wing and strut configuration sorted in elegant fashion Phoenix.

Tony

  Thank you for your confidence in me Tony: I have managed to solve some tricky problems on builds in the past, but I have also learned (and forgotten!) that the more I think and worry about a problem, the more difficult I imagine it will be....... Then when I actually bite the bullet, it is not nearly half as difficult as I imagine. This was so in this case.

 

Yes gentlemen I have managed to fix the top wing into place ........... at the third attempt! I will not distract you with too many details but just a few notes to anyone else who wants to attempt this sort of thing in future, here were my mistakes:

Attempt 1. I measured the struts and shortened the tops by a couple of mm: this was intentional as I have found from experience that trying to cut pieces such as these directly from plans is a recipe for failure as there are always tiny discrepancies on models (or at least there are on mine). Having cut the struts so that the front pair joined at the top I proceeded to apply the araldite, put the lower ends of the struts into the holes in the hull and put araldite into the holes on the underside of the wing. The wing was placed upside down on a sheet of expanded styrene so that I could clearly see the top ends of the struts, and I gently lowered the inverted hull assembly on to the wing, easing the struts into the holes. The rear of the booms were rested on a support on the styrene. This is the jig support:

 

 

And here is the model inverted and supported on the support:

 

 

 

In the meantime I checked for alignment using a large set square that I used to use for drawing maps: this made sure that the wing leading edge was at 90 degrees to the thrust line of the hull. All was left overnight to set and in the morning I found that the wing was not level - ie it was about 1cm down on one side and the same amount up on the other! It took about 10 minutes to find out why: the N strut junction on the port (left side) was not sitting as it should. I had not shortened the angled strut enough and so it was holding up the wing at that point, and because the wing is so big, the distortion was magnified at the tips.

 

Attempt 2. By carefully cutting and prising the offending araldite joint with a new scalpel blade I was able to release the wing from the struts, and then using the same procedure I was able to extract the strut from the hole in the hull. This took about 15 minutes of nerve stretching activity but I managed it without damaging the other joints. The strut was shortened and re-inserted, again with some difficulty, and the model put back on to the jig and left to dry out. Next day I checked again and this time I found that the wing was misaligned so that the leading edge was not at 90 degrees to the thrust line - I had forgotten to put a support in to stop distortion while the new joint dried out!

 

Attempt 3. This time I dismantled the whole of the struts assembly - not intentionally but by degrees as I tried unsuccessfully to correct the misalignment by juggling with different positions of struts. It was easier in the end to start again, cleaning out all of the old araldite from the holes in the wing, scraping a tiny bit more from a couple of struts and re-assembling the structure. This time I intended to make sure that horizontal alignment would be correct AND that the wing leading edge would also be at the correct angle. This meant that the wing had to be on top this time so that I could hold the hull and wing at the correct angles. I abandoned the styrene jig and used other materials instead viz a pile of books, a paint pot, graph paper and a pair of my late mother's hair grips.

 

 

 

 

This time it worked! I know that some of you write/talk about kits "fighting you" - this is not a kit but I certainly have had a battle with this particular assembly. I have checked both the alignment of the wing to hull - correct, and the height of the wing tips from the desk top - there is about a 2mm discrepancy and as I cannot see it by eye I can live with it. So here is the model as of this evening, ready for me to start putting the large under-wing V struts into place. I am breathing normally again and I think that I should be able to complete this before the January deadline, provided that I do not drop it or run into another unforseen problem.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

P

 

[TheBaron]

I am so pleased for you to see that looking so well now Phoenix. Your inverted aircraft / support jig shows Occam's razor at its finest. No expensive gear, just good old fashioned ingenuity and sensitivity to materials.

Bravo!

Tony

[hendie]

I'll repeat what I said earlier - that does not look like an assembled model kit by any stretch of the imagination.  That's as professional as they come.

 

I've followed this build purely because you were scratch building and I was interested in your techniques, not because I had any particular interest in the aircraft.

In the photo's it looked like a vaguely interesting if awkward machine.  However, your build of this a/c has turned it into a rather sleek and quite beautiful piece of engineering, and much more fascinating than the photo's of the original aircraft.

This is a couple of steps above museum quality!

[jrlx]

It's getting better and better and I'm at a loss for words to appropriately praise your excellent craftsmanship

 

And, again, it's a beautiful aircraft indeed!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[Brandy]

Beautifully done P!

This just gets better and better with every update. Fantastic workmanship and a very unusual subject...always a good recipe!

 

Ian

[pheonix]

On 12/18/2017 at 12:29 PM, TheBaron said:

I am so pleased for you to see that looking so well now Phoenix. Your inverted aircraft / support jig shows Occam's razor at its finest. No expensive gear, just good old fashioned ingenuity and sensitivity to materials.

Bravo!

Tony

Thank you Tony. I prefer the Occam approach to modelling generally. Without in any way wishing to criticise other modellers or seem superior (which I emphatically am not), I do think that sometimes some people make life unnecessarily complicated for themselves with tools and other paraphernalia. I am posting this with specific details to try to show what can be done with relatively simple tools and techniques which I think can be mastered by many modellers. A little time and thought can frequently solve what seem to be intractable problems, although as i have already explained, the wing did give me some headaches initially. I should have followed Stevehed's advice sooner - such a simple solution with hindsight (or foresight for him!)

 

On 12/18/2017 at 2:42 PM, hendie said:

I'll repeat what I said earlier - that does not look like an assembled model kit by any stretch of the imagination.  That's as professional as they come.

 

I've followed this build purely because you were scratch building and I was interested in your techniques, not because I had any particular interest in the aircraft.

In the photo's it looked like a vaguely interesting if awkward machine.  However, your build of this a/c has turned it into a rather sleek and quite beautiful piece of engineering, and much more fascinating than the photo's of the original aircraft.

This is a couple of steps above museum quality!

Coming from a modeller with your skills and experience in working with different media I regard this as praise indeed: thank you very much for being so generous. This was the first time that I used brass rod so extensively in a model: it will not be the last.

 

I am genuinely chuffed that the aircraft 's aesthetic appeal has got through to you as it was what originally attracted me to thee type. Sometimes aircraft designers seem to get it right - not quite in this case as experience showed, but not so far off. Not bad for only the second attempt by the Dornier team to design a flying boat.

 

On 12/18/2017 at 3:21 PM, jrlx said:

It's getting better and better and I'm at a loss for words to appropriately praise your excellent craftsmanship

 

And, again, it's a beautiful aircraft indeed!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

Thank you Jamie for this and all of your other very complimentary comments. I am pleased that you too find the shape of this poorly known type appealing: it is just a shame that it is not available as a kit!

 

On 12/18/2017 at 4:20 PM, limeypilot said:

Beautifully done P!

This just gets better and better with every update. Fantastic workmanship and a very unusual subject...always a good recipe!

 

Ian

Thank you Ian. Coming from an ingenious and meticulous modeller such as you I value this comment very highly.

[stevehed]

Well done P. Looks like you've cracked it.

 

Regards, Steve

[nimrod54]

Inspirational work P. very well done. I have picked up several tips to help me produce a missing tailplane for a 1/48 Catalina repair job.

[JWM]

She start to look! - a real monster...

I am deeply impressed by quality of your work.

Regards

J-W

[pheonix]

Evening All,

 

Thanks Steve, Nimrod and Jerzy for your very complimentary remarks - I appreciate them very much as they come from modellers who's skill and ingenuity I respect and admire.

 

I am aware that time is pressing and that I too will be away for part of the holiday break - specifically New Year so I want if possible to have photos in the gallery before I go away because I will not then be thinking about it all the time. Of course there is still plenty of time for me to make more mistakes, as I found out today - details to follow, and I need to allow some time for the possibilities of these happening again!

 

I had cut the underwing V struts from 40 x 120 thou Evergreen strip - 2 pairs per side - and scraped and shaped them into aerofoil section a little while ago. I had also painted them and drilled holes to take the angled braces between the struts and the upper V and the wing. I also drilled two holes on the upper side of the lower struts to take a pair of generators later. I had measured the lengths from the plans and thought that I had allowed a little extra for trimming to the actual required size.

 

 

In fact I had not! Do not ask how....... as stated in an earlier post if you need advice on how to get things wrong, just ask me! The struts on the port (left) side were just 1mm too long, but on the starboard (right) side they were 2.5mm too short! So I proceeded to put the port side struts on and am in the process of making new longer ones for upper V the right side: I have cut down the existing longer ones to make new short ones if that makes sense! Fitting them was much easier than I anticipated. The photos show that I had already cut the ends which will attach to the small lugs on the sides of the hull and it was a simple job to just file the last few microns to be able to get a near perfect fit. The the top of the lower V and bottom of the upper V ends were filed flat where they are attached to the hull to remove the paint and improve the junction between the pairs as the originals seem to have been welded together. The ends which attach to the wing had also been filed so that they would fit snugly into the slots which I had drilled and cut to receive them. I glued the upper pair at the V joint first, and when this had dried for about 15 minutes I made the final adjustment to length and glued it into place. The lower V was fitted in the same way. Finally I measured the gaps between the struts on the model using dividers and cut lengths of 40 thou rod to make up the bracing both between the struts and the struts and the wing: the ends of the rod were fixed into the holes in the wing and struts which had been made earlier.

 

 

 

 

The jig that I had prepared earlier to support the model while I put the wing on came into its own for this operation, and I shall use it again when I attach the remaining struts and add the rigging in this area. And before anyone asks what ids the hole doing in the hull, it was not a drain on the original aircraft! This is a large model for me and I therefore intend to display it on a covered base: I want to try to represent the turntable outside the hangar at Seemoos where the machine was built which can be seen in the photographs referred to at the start of this thread, and I have had suggestions from two people that I should motorise the turntable! I have bought a railway turntable motor and the hole in the hull was drilled to take the drive shaft from the motor. I will start a new thread to describe this when I start to make the base in January, and will post it in the relevant section.

 

Thanks for looking..

 

P

[jrlx]

Impressive work on the wing struts! Beautiful, clean job! Very well done

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[Brandy]

As Jaime said!

It just gets gooderer and gooderer.  (I think I've been in the US too long!)

 

Ian